Meta Platforms | Fundamental Analysis 🚀

Meta Platforms, the social media giant formerly known as Facebook, became a trillion-dollar company in June 2021. Three months later, its market value peaked at $1.08 trillion.

But Meta is currently worth only $370 billion. It has lost two-thirds of its value as a slowdown in its advertising business, continued losses in its virtual reality business and rising interest rates have scared away even the company's most ardent fans.

These unfavorable factors aren't going away anytime soon, but Meta stock also looks historically cheap at 17 times earnings estimates. Can this company regain its former appeal and join the 12-Zero club by the end of this decade?

In the first nine months of 2022, Meta earned nearly 98% of its revenue from advertising. It advertises in its "family of apps," which includes Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

That family of apps served 3.71 billion monthly active users in the third quarter of 2022, up 4 percent from a year ago. However, Meta's ad business growth did slow in 2022.

This slowdown was caused by three main factors. First, Apple's iOS update disrupted Meta's ability to create targeted ads using third-party data, ByteDance's TikTok pulled users and advertisers away from Facebook and Instagram, and businesses began buying fewer ads as macroeconomic factors reduced their spending.

To counter Apple, Meta is refining its algorithms to collect more first-party data to target ads. It is also actively expanding Instagram Reels to challenge TikTok but admits that short videos are much harder to monetize than traditional ads. Both strategies will require Meta to increase spending as revenue growth has slowed.

In the meantime, Meta continues to invest billions of dollars in Reality Labs, a division that develops virtual reality headsets and software. In the first nine months of 2022, that division's revenue rose less than 3 percent year over year to $1.4 billion, but its operating loss rose from $6.9 billion to $9.4 billion. This pressure, along with a slowdown in the higher-margin advertising business, has caused Meta's operating margin to drop from 40% in 2021 to 27% in the first nine months of 2022.

Analysts are overwhelmingly negative about Meta's near-term prospects. In 2022, they expect revenues to fall 1% to $116.3 billion, operating margins to fall 26%, and net income to fall 37% to $24.7 billion.

However, this outlook could improve over the next few years as near-term adversity wears off. Meta's ad revenue could stabilize and grow again as the company collects more first-party data and monetizes more Reels. The broader advertising market may warm when inflation is contained and the Fed stops raising rates. An outright ban on TikTok in the U.S., which has been proposed by lawmakers, would lead to more Instagram revenue.

Meta's investment in Reality Labs could also finally bear fruit when the company releases cheaper, lighter, and more powerful Quest VR headsets. Widespread distribution of these devices could attract more users to Horizon Worlds, Meta's metaverse, which, after its initial launch in December 2021, never really got off the ground

But if Reality Labs continues to burn through billions of dollars without showing any sign of progress, Meta could either spin it off or shut it down. Either decision would likely be approved by Meta's investors, as it would instantly improve the company's operating margins and free up more cash to expand its core advertising business.

Finally, Meta had $41.8 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities at the end of the last quarter. This huge reserve gives it plenty of room for new investments and acquisitions -- assuming antitrust regulators approve these deals.

Right now, analysts expect Meta's revenues to grow 5% in 2023 and increase 12% to $136.3 billion in 2024. The company's net income is expected to fall 11% in 2023 as it increases its expenses but grows 20% to $26.2 billion in 2024. These long-term estimates, which we should take with a grain of salt, suggest that Meta will eventually be able to overcome its near-term challenges.

If Meta's business stabilizes in 2024 and it continues to grow revenue and earnings per share (EPS) at a modest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10% over the next six years, it could have revenue of $240 billion in 2030 with earnings per share around $16.

If the company continues to trade at 17 times earnings and three times sales, its stock could reach $270 a share with a market value of $720 billion. However, a slightly higher valuation could easily cross the trillion-dollar mark. Simply put, if Meta survives the near-term downturn and starts growing steadily again, it could join the trillion-dollar club again by 2030.

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